Sass' 2008 DFW ramble thread

lauradora

Izzy wizzy lets get busy. Look at you go! xxx

Sassamac

Lol Laura, hopefully this is the start of the newly motivated me.

Sassamac

OMG lucky escape, I only just remembered 12th is mortgage payday. Im so in the habit of paying a bit off every Friday that I completely forgot, now the arrears are cleared we need to keep on top of the payments otherwise we will be accruing £35 late payment fees every month. Anyway the DD is now set up so I dont have to remember it again, I just have to make sure Im putting a bit by every Friday and then make sure its in the right place at the right time for the payment to go through every month.

I thought it was going to push us very close to our OD limit, but we got childbenefit through today (every month it surprises me as it gets a few days earlier each month), plus the tax credit bonus yesterday while they adjust our payments, plus our usual TC's last Thu. So all in all it makes up for this Friday being the no pay day Friday in the rota.

The remaining money has to last us the next 10 days til a proper payday and we need to claw back some breathing space in the OD. We just seem to be juggling money at the mo. Every time we pay off a chunk of debt from a CC, or repay the other OD which has been robbed, we're still as much in debt because it just makes us more OD on our current account. I have contemplated setting up another bank account so we can treat the current account OD as any other debt to be paid off. However, Im worried that no-one will take us on seeing as we're permanently close to 1k OD.

Ah well, going to have a free afternoon. If DD wakes up in time we will walk into town before picking DS up from school. Then let them run off some steam in the park afterwards. Will have a looksee whilst in town for some reduced bread as we're getting low. I have done a shopping list which hopefully can wait til Friday. So far it totals £12 and some of that is 2 weeks or 4 weeks worth. Its a good job as Im £15 over budget so far this month. I've done the next fortnights worth of meal plan and theres very little that we actually need so hopefully we will be back under budget by next week.

Just remembered I need to phone the bank as they wrote to me about my CC balance transfer.

Sassamac

Right well another £3 on groceries. £1.60 of which I am ashamed to admit was 'unnecessary'. The weather came out warm and what with all the running around in the park we were gasping for a drink. Luckily it was BOGOF. Also got loads of bread, pittas, bagels etc. reduced by 75% or 25%. So all in all £8 worth of shopping.

I forgot to take the sausages out of the freezer this morning, and TBH I CBA to cook tonight anyway so I just cheated and took a leftover chicken casserole (at least I think thats what it is, a lesson there in labelling food) out the freezer and straight into the oven. Just need some spuds or pasta or something and its a done meal.

Sassamac

Im actively using my snowball calculator now. I updated with a CC min pay that came out this week, and a £50 payment I made to my other OD. Those two actions have knocked a month off my DFD but really thats not a true reflection, as its just being offset by the current acc OD. So we wont get a true picture til the end of the month, (I always update the total debt on my spreadsheets as of midnight on the last day of the month) but as it happens Feb is a 5 Friday month, so its going to make us look rich. Ah well, I guess it all balances out in the end.

Sassamac

right Ive set up the bank transfers for this month to sort the mortgage. Every Friday thats a payday over one quarter of the mortgage payment gets transfered to the secondary savings account, and every Friday thats a non payday, the remainder (which is about half the other payments) gets transfered. Then the day before the mortgage DD comes out its all being transfered back into the current acc.

Mission for today - send my c.v. off to apply for a couple of jobs, before its too late.

Sassamac

I wrote a great long post on Friday but the forum went down while I was typing so I lost it all and CBA to rewrite it. It was just summarising what we are owed from tax credits in terms of backpayment (should be 3k) and bigger 4 weekly payments, which means we can afford to switch the mortgage back to repayment and have £30 spare every month to pay for the stuff we have been neglecting recently, like household maintenance, haircut, new trainers.

DH's bike cost about £150 to fix in the end, and he had one day off as a result of his injuries, so the loss of earnings is about £75 in terms of take home pay. So could have been much worse if he hadnt been able to just buy the parts and fix it himself, and considering he has broken ribs its a miracle he hasnt had to have more time off.

Im spending this w/e baking so lots of good HM snacks. I also have loads of veg to make a soup, but no fresh bread to go with it, so will put that on hold til I find something decent on the reduced counter.

SarahNeedle1872

Great news on the TCs.... that'll make a big difference, esp if it means u can switch back to repayment mortgage... Hopefully they'll get it right for you this time!

Sassamac

thanks Sarah, perhaps Im cynical, but it seems like 'getting it right' is a bit of a lottery, but I guess I'll just keep phoning them til they do. Im expecting the confirmation in the post in the next day or two actually.

I tried having a play with the entitled to calculator last night, to see what effect it would have if I got a part time job (on the basis of how many hours I can fit around DH's hours and how much Im likely to earn). But I couldnt make head nor tail of it, they seem to have changed the website, and I couldnt even make it tell me what it told me last time.

Anyway I have seen another job advertised that I want to apply for, so will try and do something about that today. I guess I'll just have to go for it and worry about tax credits changes if and when I get a job.

Half term this week and DH is on nights, so I have keep out of the house as much as poss, while entertaining the children for (nearly) free. Ive got toddler group this morning, and meeting a friend after lunch, which is a bold move for me.
Also need to pop out to get bread at some point.

Sassamac

well I was right. Th tax creds info cam thru in the post today and its £115 per 4 weeks short of what we were expecting. I spoke to the childrens centre manager at toddler group this morning as they have a tax credits advisor who comes periodically to talk to the mums. So Im expecting him to call me at some point this week. Having spoken to him before I know he talks sense so I think that is preferable to talking to a call centre worker about it.

dodgy typos = sleeping dd on lap